For many years agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler, for example a round baler, travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into cylindrically-shaped round bales.
More specifically, pickups of the baler gather the cut and windrowed crop material from the ground, then convey the cut crop material into a bale-forming chamber within the baler. A drive mechanism operates to activate the pickups, augers, and a rotor of the feed mechanism. A conventional baling chamber may include a pair of opposing sidewalls with a series of belts that rotate and compress the crop material into a cylindrical shape.
When the bale has reached a desired size and density, a wrapping system may wrap the bale to ensure that the bale maintains its shape and density. For example, a net may be used to wrap the bale of crop material. A cutting or severing mechanism may be used to cut the net once the bale has been wrapped. The wrapped bale may be ejected from the baler and onto the ground by, for example, raising a tailgate of the baler. The tailgate is then closed and the cycle repeated as necessary and desired to manage the field of cut crop material.
It is known to provide a density system to apply increased tension on the belts during the bale forming process in order to create a densely packed bale. A hydraulic density cylinder with a controlled fluid release limits the rate of bale chamber expansion and provides a degree of crop compaction during baling. The amount of compaction may be varied by adjusting the fluid release rate, often in the form of a pressure relief vale which restricts the extension of the density cylinder by forcing fluid through a variable relief. When the bale reaches a desired size and is discharged, mechanical springs acting on take up arms inside the bale chamber are typically employed to return the hydraulic cylinder to its initial position and provide a biasing force on the take up arms so a new bale forming cycle may commence.
In order to discharge the completed bale, the geometry of the belt take-up system requires some slack in order to open the tailgate and discharge the bale. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Publication No. 2013/0298787, incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. In this system, hydraulic cylinders help support the movement of the take up arms by providing force on connecting tension lever arms. During the ejection of a bale, the bale density/belt tensioning system is temporally bypassed, allowing the tailgate open without the additional resistance of the baling belts.
Problems can arise during the closing of the tailgate after the bale has been ejected. The correct tension on the baling belts must be restored and maintained during the tailgate closing cycle to properly begin the next baling cycle in a prompt manner. If the tailgate closes too quickly, the movement of the take up arms may not keep up, causing excess slack at the start of the baling cycle. Therefore, the disclosure relates to a system needed to coordinate the movement of the tailgate and the take up arms, such that that proper baling belt tension is maintained through the tailgate closing cycle.